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Scotland (Counties as in 1851-1901) => Scotland => Aberdeenshire => Topic started by: jessienicolson on Saturday 04 April 15 14:00 BST (UK)
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Does anyone know what sort of air raid shelters would have been in the back gardens of Fraser Place, Aberdeen, during the war. My parents, plus myself and brother, and all other tenants in the house, sheltered in one. We were all safe, only to find when we came out of the shelter that the whole tenement had been struck by a bomb and reduce to rubble
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Most were precast concrete. about 25 feet long, 8 feet high, the walls and roof being 6inch reinforced, 4 small windows just below the roof, and the door was offset to the length. I used to play in one at the bottom of my grannie's garden at Ardarroch Road in Aberdeen when I was a child in the 1950's.
Regards
Malky
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Thank you, sounds like the one that was left over in our garden in Logie Avenue, Aberdeen.
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Evidently, there were different designs. Yours for urban use and my parents for rural use. My parents lived out in the country in South Bucks. I think it was called an 'Anderson shelter'. It was corrugated metal, upright sides and back and curved roof. The front had a metal door. The whole covered in several feet of earth. Loose aggregate for a floor.
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A bit like the one in the film Mr Tom. When living in Logie Avenue, we as children would put on shows for our friends. Now we are reminiscing.
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Indeed Jessie. It was only my parents 1940 to 1943, then I came along. My mother told me many years later that one day in 1944, she heard a low flying aircraft getting closer, flew out of the house to retrieve me from my pram in the garden, and leg it to the shelter. She looked up and saw the plane black crosses and all.
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Evidently, there were different designs. Yours for urban use and my parents for rural use. My parents lived out in the country in South Bucks. I think it was called an 'Anderson shelter'. It was corrugated metal, upright sides and back and curved roof. The front had a metal door. The whole covered in several feet of earth. Loose aggregate for a floor.
it was indeed an Anderson shelter .......... I spent many a night in one during the blitz so you can guess how old I am.
I remember one night after the warning sirens had sounded and my family had taken refuge in the shelter that a VI (flying bomb) cut out it's engines somewhere near our home and the silence was awful waiting for the explosion which turned out to be two streets away.
Joe